Filtering by Tag: South San Francisco

Based on the email exchange below; we're wondering about a cozy relationship between SMC LAFCo and the City of South San Francsico.

Our first impression is that South City clearly went behind the Harbor District's back in order to lobby Martha Poyatos, LAFCo Director to be the successor agency.

Whether SSF Assistant City Manager Jim Steele is acting on his own or representing the council is unclear, but knowing the South City Council we doubt he's doing this without the foreknowledge of at least some others on the council.

Based on the email exchange below it appears that South City was thinking, "If the Harbor District is dissolved then we want the property tax for ourselves, how do we get the money?" — that little bit about Martha researching different types of appointed boards is interesting. Apparently Martha thinks her job description includes doing research for Jim Steele and SSF Manager Mike Futrell.

Why didn't South City notify the Harbor District that it was inquiring into potentially becoming a successor agency, and if not South City, why didn't Martha/LAFCo let the Harbor District know?

Why is Pietro Parravano kissing a junior staffer at a Harbor Commission meeting?

The kiss violates the District's Harassment and Retaliation Policy 6.2.5.

Section B:

It is no defense that the recipient appears to have voluntarily "consented" to the conduct at issue. A recipient may not protest for many legitimate reasons, including the need to avoid being insubordinate or avoid being ostracized.

Section D:

Even visual, verbal, and/or physical conduct between two employees who appear to welcome it can constitute harassment of a third applicant, elected representative, officer, employee or contractor who observes the conduct or learns about the conduct later. Conduct can constitute harassment even if it is not explicitly or specifically directed at an individual.

Is the Harbor District considering selling property to a company with links to organized crime?

When Peter Nguyen and Kara Chau were told to vacate Pier 45 in San Francisco it was because their company Next Seafood owed $143,172.20 in back rent and $77,881.25 in attorney fees to the Port of San Francisco. The seafood wholesalers continued their business under a new company name, Global Quality Foods located in Hayward.

Harbor District realtor Jan Gray confirmed that she recived a cash offer from Global Quality Foods for a 2.5-acre property in El Granada known as the the Obispo lot next to the Post Office. An article published in the Half Moon Bay Review on Nov. 20, 2014 said the following:

The company indicated it could pay for the land in cash without the need for loans. The company later sent proof of funds, Jan Gray said.

“Cash is cash, and they’ve proven they have the cash,” Gray said.

The Harbor District has owned the land since the 1950s, when it was donated to the District by two women in memory of their fishermen husbands. News of the offer has commercial seafood business owners and commercial fishermen concerned that Harbor Commissioners might enable a money laundering scheme if an offer that included ill-gotten gains was accepted.

It's been alleged that Dzunt (Peter) Nguyen and Kara Chau have been involved with racketeering and corruption. In 2014 the couple testified that $150,000. was paid for an ice machine in three sacks containing $50,000. each.

Some in the fishing community are under the impression that Harbor Commissioner Jim Tucker may have a connection to Next Seafood/Global Quality Foods through one of his campaign donors.

Inquiring minds want to know if Commissioners Jim Tucker and Will Holsinger are counting on "sacks of cash" when a deal on the Obispo lot in El Granada moves forward at their final board meeting on Dec. 3, 2014?

Will Holsinger paid Daly City Mayor David Canepa's company Clique Factory $5000 to generate a fake Twitter following, post attack tweets from multiple fake Twitter accounts and for Canepa's endorsment in the 2014 Harbor District election.

It appears that Peter Grenell authorized the Harbor District web designer Georgia Wright to do work (web design and brochure design) for the California Maritime InfrastructureBank and Authority (CMIB/A). During the Aug. 6th board meeting Grenell stated that Ms. Wright's company Market Web Consulting had never invoiced CMIB/A or been paid by CMIB/A. He also said that Market Web Consulting had worked for the CMIB/A for about 8 or 9 years.

It appears that the San Mate County Harbor District may have been paying Market Web Consulting for CMIB/A work/billable hours. Peter Grenell may have authorized spending Harbor District funds on the CMIB/A website and marketing materials. Georgia Wright may have been told to bill the Harbor District for her time/work for the CMIB/A and told not to include the CMIB/A billable hours as a line item on Market Web Consulting invoices to the SMCHD. Its possible that Ms. Wright lumped her CMIB/A hours in with her Harbor District hours and invoiced the Harbor District for both.

It's unusual that Peter Grenell invited Brian Foss, CMIB/A Board Member and past President and David Hull, CMIB/A Executive Director to be on the Harbor District committee to interview candidates for the Harbormaster position.

At Aug. 6, 2014 Harbor District meeting Peter Grenell said that for about 9 years the Harbor District web design consulting firm Web Market Consulting had also been providing web design for the CMIB/A. Read the Web Market Consulting Invoice.

During the same meeting Commissioner Brennan asked Peter Grenell if Web Market Consulting was paid to design and update the CMIB/A website. Peter Grenell said, "Number one, they don't get paid, they've never invoiced for their services. So there's no money changing hands. Number two, It seemed a matter of convenience to have Web Market Consulting pickup the rather minimal website needs of CMIA, that's how that happened." ﻿

Commissioner Brennan asked if any SMC Harbor District staff, employees or consultants have engaged in any CMIB/A activities? Peter Grenell said, "No." 2:10:12

Commissioner Brennan asked if any SMC Harbor District employees of Harbor Commissioners have attended any CMIB/A events or meetings? 2:10:42

Peter Grenell said, "Harbormaster Scott Grindy attended the Northern California seminar, a one day thing in San Francisco."﻿

Questions

Who was on the interview committee when Scott Grindy was interviewed by Harbor District? Read the PRA email below.

The email indicates that Brian Foss, CMIB/A Board Member and past President and David Hull, CMIB/A Executive Director may have been on the interview committee or in some way involved with the interview process.

We're delighted to learn that Pietro Parravano was removed from the Roots of Change Stewardship Council in 2011. It's good to know that the citizen initiative to broaden awareness about this crooked commissioner is successful.

Michael Dimock, President of Roots of Change tweeted the correction below on June 26, 2014.

Golf balls are bombarding the Port of Everett and anti-terrorism cameras are being trained on a residential neighborhood to hunt down the source.

Port officials believe someone on Rucker Hill is whacking golf balls down the hill onto port property, endangering dozens of workers and millions of dollars worth of equipment and cargo.

"We're trying to use any means possible to stop it, aside from posting somebody in the field of fire all day and night," said Ed Madura, a port security official.

The port says the flying golf balls constitute a threat to personal safety. Pointing video surveillance cameras toward the likely source is an appropriate use of the equipment, port officials say.

In the eyes of at least one resident in the Rucker Hill neighborhood southwest of downtown, swiveling the cameras from the fence line to the neighborhood is an invasion of privacy.

"Hitting golf balls is a problem, but if they turn their cameras up on the neighborhood and spy on us, that's a bigger problem," said David Mascarenas, a neighborhood watchdog who has for years fought the port to improve the community's access to public land.

The cameras were paid for, along with fencing and other security equipment, with $2.3 million in grants from the Department of Homeland Security following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Before the attacks, the Everett port had open terminals and only minimal security. People who live in the surrounding neighborhoods often would walk down and drop crab pots off piers that are now blocked by tall cyclone fences topped with razor wire.

Golf balls have been raining on the port's Pacific Terminal for several months. However, a police report wasn't filed until this week when 18 golf balls over the span of two days were found near stacks of shipping containers. One ball even bounced into a piece of equipment waiting to be shipped to Alaska.

"It's been going on for a while, but it's been getting a lot worse the last couple of days," port spokeswoman Lisa Lefeber said.

Dock superintendent Bob Porter has been shagging balls from the Rucker Hill golfer for months. He keeps a box of them in his office near Pier 1.

"We have to put a stop to it," Porter said.

No injuries have been reported, although an errant golf ball is believed to have broken the driver's-side window of a longshoreman's pickup truck, which was parked in a secure area.

Lefeber said as many as 100 people may be working at the port on any given day. And while most activity happens during the day, people work at the port all hours.

John Nostrom lives near a grassy overlook on Warren Avenue. On two instances, in recent years, he has seen young men pull up to the spot, haul out their drivers, then tee off. The spot is a little more than 200 yards from the place where balls are being found.

"They don't hang out too long," he said.

A good golfer could drive a ball at speeds of up to 165 mph, said Rex Fullerton, general manager at Legion Memorial Golf Course in north Everett.

At that speed, golf balls can seriously injure someone.

"It's obviously a dangerous thing for somebody to just hit a golf ball into an area where it flies over people," Fullerton said. "Of course, we'd encourage them to hit golf balls at our golf course."

If someone is caught, any criminal charges that might be filed would depend on the circumstances, said Sgt. Robert Goetz with the Everett Police Department.

It isn't clear who is driving golf balls onto port land or why. Is it someone practicing their chip shot or a person with a chip on their shoulder?

Steve Ritchie, a dispatcher with The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 32, said he wouldn't be surprised if it was all a malicious act by a disgruntled Rucker Hill resident.

The neighborhood, named for the prominent Rucker family, which built a hilltop mansion there in the early 1900s, boasts some of the city's best views of Port Gardner, the Olympic Mountains and Cascade Range.

There have long been tensions between the neighborhood and the port over noise from container ships that are sometimes unloaded in the middle of the night, glare from floodlights and exhaust from idling vessels.

"There's a lot of people out on Rucker Hill that want the longshoremen more or less shut down," Ritchie said.

When golf balls began pelting the Port of Everett's shipping terminal, security officers trained their anti-terrorism cameras on the nearby hillside neighbors, hoping to catch the mystery duffers.

But after residents complained of being spied on, port officials turned the surveillance cameras around. Nevertheless, the barrage of balls has ended.

"In hindsight, we realize the golf balls are a public safety issue, not a threat to the terminals in terms of somebody breaking in," port security director Scott Grindy told The Herald of Everett. "Aiming at the hillside probably wasn't an appropriate use."

Police reports were filed and the video cameras were trained on Rucker Hill after dozens of golf balls landed on the port property in recent weeks, which Grindy said endangered workers and equipment.

The cameras, obtained with some of the more than $2.3 million in federal Homeland Security money for the port, never spotted any balls being hit, and the effort will not be resumed, Grindy told The Associated Press on Friday.

Residents who learned about the surveillance from an article published by The Herald newspaper on May 16 were upset they were being watched.

"If they have the ability to tape my house, there should be a written policy to determine who can see these tapes and how they are used," Dave Miller, whose bedroom window faces the port, told the Everett paper.

Charlene Rawson, chairwoman of the Port Gardner Neighborhood Association, which includes Rucker Hill and the port's terminals, arranged a meeting with port Executive Director John Mohr.

"We had a nice conversation about it," said Rawson, who initially said she believed the port's actions violated people's privacy. "The port said they don't have the cameras pointed at any particular house."

There's no way for the public to determine exactly what the cameras recorded. Port officials said they cannot share video footage because of Homeland Security rules, not can they disclose the location of cameras or answer whether they can pan or zoom.

Grindy said port officials are now working on a surveillance policy.

The only reported damage from the wayward balls was a broken window in a vacant pickup truck two weeks ago. But Grindy said near misses were reported by crews on Amtrak passenger trains, Sounder commuter rail and Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight trains.

Golfers apparently were practicing at the top of the hill in an area where the port terminals, railroad tracks and a public footpath cannot be seen, he said.

"I think the whole issue is that an avid golfer is not realizing that there's all this stuff below," he said.

The Civil Grand Jury ripped into the San Mateo County Harbor Commission in a new report titled, "What is the Price of Dysfunction?" The report was released to the public on July 9, 2014.

The report says, "It is impossible for the Grand Jury to ignore the negative public comments that the District’s general manager frequently receives. He is most often the public face of the Harbor District. However, it should be noted that the general manager serves at the pleasure of the Harbor Commission with whom final oversight resides."

In June 2014, Jean B. Savaree, attorney with Aaronson, Dickerson, Cohn & Lanzone, ended a 25 year engagement with the San Mateo County Harbor District.

In March 2014, Jean Savaree informed the board of Harbor Commissioners that her firm would not renew its contract with the District. The announcement followed a heated meeting where Commissioner Will Holsinger accused Savaree of "poor legal scholarship" and disagreed with her findings. Read about the "research" Will Holsinger disagreed with and his repeated harassment of the only woman member of the Harbor Commission.

Aaronson, Dickerson, Cohn & Lanzone first engaged to serve as Harbor District legal counsel with the appointment of Kenneth M. Dickerson in 1989, and he was succeeded by Marc L. Zafferano in 1998, and by Jean B. Savaree in 2011.

We confront bullying and aggression head on. Harbor Commissioner William Holsinger has crossed the line too many times. The unacceptable bullying must stop now.

At the May 21, 2014 Harbor District meeting Commercial Fisherman Steve Fitz waited 4 hours to speak to the board of Harbor Commissioners for 3 minutes.

At 10:00pm when President Robert Bernardo called Captain Fitz for public comment Commissioners Jim Tucker and Will Holsinger responded by ordering an immediate end to the meeting. This was after Captain Fitz waited 4 hours while the board dilly dallied in closed session for 3 hour, leaving only 1 hour to cover a 21 item agenda.

It was at the point that members of the public began yelling at the board to let Captain Fitz speak. Commissioner Brennan urged President Bernardo to extend the meeting by five minutes. Commissioner Tucker got out of his chair and was about to walk out when President Bernardo agreed to allow one last public speaker.

Captain Fitz read aloud a letter to the US Department of Transportation from the Half Moon Bay Seafood Marketing Association. The letter requested the Harbor District be denied a federal Tiger Grant.

Highlights from the letter include a lack of faith in harbor management's ability to administer the federal grant appropriately and a vote of no confidence in the board of Harbor Commissioners.

"We have made numerous attempts to participate in the public process with SMC Harbor District to no avail, therefore, due to the current climate within the SMCHD and because our lives depend on the changes made to our harbor, we cannot support the SMCHD Tiger Grant application at this time. We are simply not comfortable with public grant funds being provided for further changes to our port, that the local commercial fishing industry will not have a voice in."

Commercial fishermen at Pillar Point Harbor believe a new hoist location at Pillar Point Harbor/Johnson Pier is a quid pro quo gift from Harbor District General Manager Peter Grenell that favors one commercial fish buying company.